


the world was not saved so we went to the movies

by agletbaby



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: (not that that makes a significant difference but it's the context within which i was working), Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Character Study, Experimental Style, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-07
Updated: 2016-03-07
Packaged: 2018-05-25 07:31:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 933
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6185968
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/agletbaby/pseuds/agletbaby
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>He laughs at idealism, because that’s what everybody else does.</i>
</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>(in which Grantaire cannot understand revolutionaries, and they cannot understand him)</p>
            </blockquote>





	the world was not saved so we went to the movies

_i._  
  
“What do you believe in?” asks Enjolras, genuinely curious. He’s still angry, but it seems like he wants to understand. Shame.  
  
See, there are plenty of things Grantaire doesn’t believe in. Magic. That human nature is naturally altruistic, or whatever nonsense is being discussed in his philosophy lectures. Himself. That anyone he knows, however good and smart and optimistic, can change anything.  
  
Believing, on the other hand, is not something he does. Believing is more of a commitment than he’s willing to make. 

  


_ii._  
  
He reads his way through all the big names of radicalism. All those blueprints for utopias. Utopia means nowhere in the original Greek, of course. It means thought experiments for political theorists. It means nothing real.  
  
He finds something aspirational in the books, but it’s not the world they aim for. It’s the belief behind them. Hundreds of pages on how everything can change, if only the people rise up. That faith, that’s more than Grantaire can imagine now.  
  
(He doesn’t deny that change could happen. If the mobilisation was sufficient. Which is why change never will.)  
  
There’s something about all that conviction, all that energy, poured into nothing, that Grantaire finds embarrassing. He turns off the TV when activists are interviewed. Leaves those books half-finished.  
  
Jehan, glowing, wants to talk about arta funding, and Grantaire invents a tutor to meet. He refreshes Twitter constantly when Combeferre explains their plans.  
Sometimes, it hurts to look at Enjolras.

  


_iii._  
  
He’s read some of this stuff before. He’s believed in things. A long way away, a Grantaire with whom he shares memories and a body and little else, hopes for a better future. Here and now and far too close, Grantaire can muster nostalgia about the ABC’s ideas, if he's in a good mood. Sometimes that feels like support. Sometimes that feels like enough.  
  
But mostly, it doesn’t.  
  
He laughs at idealism, because that’s what everybody else does.

  


_iv._  
  
Bahorel laughs and laughs and laughs, and there are tears in his eyes, and his cheeks are red, and he only laughs harder. Bossuet, next to him, is silent. He seems to have transcended, feeling something mere sound cannot capture, his face split open by joy.  
  
Enjolras is sitting alone in the corner, and he’s smiling meditatively, and Grantaire would say it’s a peaceful picture, except he knows Enjolras and how his peace burns.  
  
Musichetta’s jewellry catches the light and holds it as tightly as she is Joly’s hand. He’s smiling like a sunrise. Marius juggles languages and jobs and ideas and still turns up keen to learn, and Jehan spent the journey here staring out the bus window and pinning dramas and romances and lives onto the houses they pass, spinning stories from the sunshine, and Enjolras is still waiting for them to move on, quieten down, so he can fashion them into an army, because he somehow believes this isn’t good enough.  
  
Eponine radiates her own quiet brand of happy, nothing like a soldier even in her combat boots. Feuilly shows Courfeyrac a dove made from a napkin, and Courfeyrac holds it aloft like it really might take flight. Combeferre is talking about something he’s read, some trashy novel, and his hands are aflutter in the evening light, lose and free.  
  
Enjolras waits this out.  
  
Grantaire doesn’t see Enjolras’ better world, but that’s okay, because Enjolras doesn’t see how good the one that’s already here is.

  


_v._  
  
Utopias aren’t real, that’s in the etymology, that’s in the manta Grantaire repeats to himself, but sometimes, he thinks he glimpses them. They ring in fading footsteps, sit in puddles reflecting neon. Sometimes, he gets so happy it hurts, an intersection of lighting and music and moment that is never perfect, but better than dusty towers of books and sustainable housing that the nowhere will be made from.

  


_vi._  
  
Admittedly, Grantaire is one of those nihilistic, nothing matters, claim death’s sweet embrace - and laugh through it all - types. Bring on the end, he says. Bring it all down with you. Might as well. Nothing better to do.  
  
But he doesn’t believe in letting ideology govern your life. He doesn't actually want to go. They march on without him. 

  


_vii._  
  
“What do you believe in?”  
  
Well.  
  
Grantaire thinks about reading accounts of revolution as secrets, whispered across the years just for him. He thinks about spending every ABC meeting discontent and detached, and then returning because it feels so much more than anything else. The fact he used to wear red like a battle cry, and now he doesn’t wear it at all, it whispers too loud. He thinks about why he buys his vodka so cheap. He thinks about why he buys his vodka. He thinks about ideas and ideals.  
  
Sometimes, it hurts to look at Enjolras because he believes so much, and Grantaire knows he can’t be right. Sometimes, it hurts because it sounds like he might be.  
  
Enjolras talks on a rainy Tuesday evening like it’s the end of the world, like it’s the final stand against the apocalypse. Together, they can fight the aliens, they can stop the toxins, they can hand out pamphlets and put up posters and sell cakes to fund educational outreach programs. Together, that’ll actually matter.  
  
Together they can save humanity.  
  
Grantaire is used to focusing on the parts of humanity that don’t need saving.  
  
That's why it’s probably only habit that he focuses on Enjolras, who smiles and smites and has utopias sticking to the soles of his shoes like gum.  
  
That doesn’t stop it feeling like it actually matters.  
  
Grantaire answers him truthfully.

**Author's Note:**

> so, this is something a little different to what i normally write, in all sorts of ways (a few: style, fandom, how much i relate to it). hopefully it works, nevertheless!!
> 
> quick disclaimer: grantaire's philosophy does not represent that of the author's - it's flawed and biased, and i'm sure he's as aware of that as anyone.
> 
> the title comes from daphne gottlieb's poem 'sexy balaclava'


End file.
